4 tabllespoons unsalted butter or whatever you like. I used olive oil - not as much
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
6 thinly sliced garlic cloves
1 small chopped onion
1/2 finely chopped green pepper
2 medium chopped tomatoes or equivalent canned
1/2 cup chopped parsley
1/4 cup chopped mint
salt and pepper
1 lemon's worth of juice - or to taste
some harrisa (I used chili paste because I was lazy)
1 tablespoon sumac
a bit of sugar -teaspoon at most?
Directions
So! You take eggplants and fry them, whole, in 1/2 inch of hot oil until they're soft. I can't for the life of me figure out how to do this without them blowing out their sides and being messy. It seems to help if you cut the stem ends off. If you find a solution to this, tell me. (I have found that using the method that Cooking for Two uses, it is easy. Cut eggplants in half, brush each half with 1/2 tablespoon of olive oil put face down on a cookie sheet, cover with foil, and bake at 400 degrees for 45-55 minutes.)
Supposedly this frying takes 6-8 minutes, but you have to do it on a case-by-case basis. Otherwise they end up getting black, which is not good. I burned a few, I admit. The ones that ended up burned on the outside were still lovely and soft on the inside and so they got mushed up and eaten separately.
So, fry them up, set them aside so they can cool. You could probably bake them also until soft. Your call. (See my note above about baking them.)
So: then you do the filling -
Fry up 1 lb. ground lamb in 4 TBSP unsalted butter (or whatever you feel like frying it in). When it's brown and nice, fling in 1 TBSP tomato paste, 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon, 6 cloves garlic that you've sliced thinly, 1 small onion, chopped, and 1/2 green bell pepper, chopped finely. Fry this another 8 min or until it looks good, with the onions browned. Then add 2 medium tomatoes, chopped up, and cook until they're soft, probably about 5-6 min.
Then take it off the heat and stir in 1/2 cup chopped parsley and 1/4 cup chopped mint, salt, and pepper until it's good. Then I add a bunch of lemon juice, some harissa (I use my homemade stuff), some sumac (1 TBSP?), and a little bit of sugar, until it tastes fabulous.
Make a slit in the eggies and stuff the stuffing in, and cook them in the oven until it's all hot and yummy.
Comments
Phyllis Watson on Sat Sep 26 15:58:36 UTC 2009:
There are recipes for harissa on the web. It is not hard to make, but in a pinch garlic chili paste will work. It will have a different flavor from the real thing, but it is so tasty that it's not a problem.